Race Sim Central
Rec.Autos.Simulators Archive

Against "patches"!

15 posts by 12 people · 06 Jan 1998 - 15 Jan 1998

Arto Wikla 06 Jan 1998#390536
Practically the only "games" I'm interested are the car racing simulators... One question came to mind: When I have been using happily the GP2, there never was any talk of "patches", I just could (and can!) use the program happily: everything works ... But when I started to know other simulator programs, ... let us say F1RS, or even the Track Pack for GP2, ... or nearly whatsoever program nowadays, I have to run some "patches" every now and then, ..., and there seems to be no end to these ... I hope the CART I ordered today belongs to the GP2 group in that ... Is this really the way we should have to use the computers? Or is this just the MS way of doing things? Arto
GP2 was unfinished and has bugs in it, but the reason why there was never any talk of patches was because Microprose had no interest in supporting GP2. MS CART won't need any patches...if you like bugs and horrible AI, that is. -- Please remove nospam from address when replying via e-mail.
Brian Bushe 06 Jan 1998#390538
That's good! I wish I didn't get distracted by all those other games! Not every thing in GP2 works: Multiplay being the best example ie no network even though it says it does on the box (?) and serial link play dramatically slows things down. We have all even up hope of a GP2 patch, which is why you see no mention of one. I would love one for network and 3dfx. Won't happen. I have been happy with f1rs and itt runs fine on my machine, but others have problems. I have no trouble with TOCA (as far as the game goes) but the makers have announced a patch (I didn't see any big firestorms about this game)! I'd rather have the game and download the patchs when they're ready. That way I get my cake, and can eat it too, but not for a while. CART Precision Racing? It doesn't! Brian -- remove 'bye' from address to reply
RLBE 06 Jan 1998#390539
I've been driving this sim for a while..., can you tell me about some of these "bugs"? Seems to run fine for me! Bob Bess.
RLBESS heeft geschreven in bericht Well, for instance, under Win95 I can't use the replays in GP-2. You can see cars driving through the air or tiny cars driving where they shouldn't i.e. in the public. Marshals dragging cars ONTO the track, changing 4 tires and one blown engine in under 7 seconds, plus filling her up. The absolute inability of back markers to GET OUT OF THE WAY!!! Now, F1-RS isn't perfect, but when I see that a Minardi being lapped DOES give me room, I say: impresive. GP-2 is bugged. Pieter's site has a whole section devoted to it, check it out. You can find one I sent in... Especially the graphics department of GP-2 is extremely buggy with half cars, smoke coming from lost tires, the whole point of ghost-debris meaning you can drive through it. Those are bugs not shown in F-1 RS. Sure, GP-2 runs, but at an appaling low framerate of a measely 16 FPS on my P-166. F-1 RS gives me a silk smooth framerate. "On 5 August 1944 in the vicinity of St. Sever Calvados, France, witnessed a German Mark V Panther tank knock out three M4 and three M5 tanks during and after being hit by at least fif*** rounds of 75mm APC from a distance of approximately 700 yards. All of these shells had ricochetted, with the exception of a six***th round which finally put the Mark V Panther out of action." Sgt. Thomas P. Welborn, Germany's Panther tank, the quest for combat superiority by Thomas L. Jentz [link lost in import] [link lost in import]
You don't have to download _any_ patches. You could just keep the bugs and limited functionality. -- <<Phoenix>> >Practically the only "games" I'm interested are the car racing >simulators... >One question came to mind: When I have been using happily the GP2, >there never was any talk of "patches", I just could (and can!) use >the program happily: everything works ... >But when I started to know other simulator programs, ... let us >say F1RS, or even the Track Pack for GP2, ... or nearly whatsoever >program nowadays, I have to run some "patches" every now and then, >..., and there seems to be no end to these ... >I hope the CART I ordered today belongs to the GP2 group in that ... >Is this really the way we should have to use the computers? Or is this >just the MS way of doing things? >Arto
Simproje 07 Jan 1998#390716
That may be, but when was the last time you saw an F1 car hit an object at anything over 35+ mph and receive no damage? Let's not forget those amazing 8-second pitstops, where you can replace a wheel that had been forcably removed several turns back... ...oh, and how do you like the multiplayer feature? ;) Cheers! Marc - Patchez?...We don' need no stinkin' patchez! - Nelson
GP2 didn't "need" patches because it was never supported by the people who published it!! If I owned a product that was not provided with upgrades/enhancements/improvements then I wouldn't have a computer system. Windows 95 would not exist, neither would Windows 3.11, 3.1, DOS 6.2, 6.0, 5.0, 3.3, 3.0, ad infinitum. A "patch" can be a darn sight more than just a bandaid: it can actually upgrade the original product. -- Bruce (at work) "Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired." (Jules Renard)
(snip) but when was the last time you saw an F1 car hit an object at anything over 35+ mph and receive no damage? (unsnip) Jerez, 1997. :-) -- Bruce (at work) "Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired." (Jules Renard)
On Tue, 6 Jan 1998 20:51:06 +0100, "The Unexplained" >Well, for instance, under Win95 I can't use the replays in GP-2. I think this is a problem with your system rather than with GP2, replays have worked fine on any system I have built or used. Backmarkers certainly do get out of the way, and changing four tyres and an engine in seven seconds is _not_ a bug. It is certainly wrong, but it is not a bug. A bug is something which causes misoperation in a program or to behave in a manner which it was not intended to do - the length of pit stop in GP2 is intentional and therefore not a bug. A little like the fact that in F1RS I can drive at 190mph with one of my front wheels missing? No pulling sideways on the straight nor, amazingly enough, when I brake into a corner. The braking distance is increased, but the car doesn't spin. Sorry to say, but that is your choice. If you want to turn on more options than your system can handle then you must accept the resulting frame-rate. If you also choose to compare a two year old product with a brand new one and draw conclusions then that is also your choice. My P225MMX which cost <100 is much faster than the P166 I was using two years ago - yes it is better, but that fact in itself should not come as any surprise. Things do progress after all. Cheers! John
John Wallace heeft geschreven in bericht >On Tue, 6 Jan 1998 20:51:06 +0100, "The Unexplained" >>Well, for instance, under Win95 I can't use the replays in GP-2. >I think this is a problem with your system rather than with GP2, >replays have worked fine on any system I have built or used. Everything else works fine... Still people scream GP-2 is superior to F1RS. Do you know how many times I've been rammed by backmarkers in GP-2 just blindly steering a-la Schumacher-Villeneuve into my path? Even when my car is 3/4 past theirs? I have developed a certain degree of "Oh no, it's Frentzen!!!" in GP-2. In F-1 RS, and this is confirmed by many others, I actually see cars drive into the gravel to avoid me whenever I spin, overtake them or lap them and there's not enough room. My bad driving is the cause, but the reaction of the cars is excellent. But I have various games saved showing just ridiculous things happening like the time I crashed at Monza and sat looking how a Marshal pushed a car away that was only being drawn up to the side-pods, nothing above that. Multiplayer is a dog. You need to have 2 identical PCs otherwise the lower end PC will not be able to process the data sent. This is even true between a P-166 and a P-133. I still have a P-166, same one as then, and F-1 RS even though it is so much superior in graphics and features runs smooth as I've never seem a sim do. People say GP-2 has a better speed-sensation. Why? When I see trees flying past me in F-1 RS I think "Pretty damn fast." GP-2 AI is better. None of the competitors cars drives straight into me in F1-RS when I overtake them. They don't push their cars into mine when there's a pile up. The only point of improvement would be the menu system, especially the garage. And that Ubisoft has released 2 patches, Thumbs up for this newcomer. Microprose and Spectrum Holobyte were settled names in the Software industry, but they totally ignored GP-2 and neglected to give any support. I like GP-2, but it's gone now, pase. "On 5 August 1944 in the vicinity of St. Sever Calvados, France, witnessed a German Mark V Panther tank knock out three M4 and three M5 tanks during and after being hit by at least fif*** rounds of 75mm APC from a distance of approximately 700 yards. All of these shells had ricochetted, with the exception of a six***th round which finally put the Mark V Panther out of action." Sgt. Thomas P. Welborn, Germany's Panther tank, the quest for combat superiority by Thomas L. Jentz [link lost in import] [link lost in import]
They're all design features, dear boy <g> $%&ing poor design features though.... Cheers, Richard
On Thu, 8 Jan 1998 10:25:49 +0100, "The Unexplained" >Everything else works fine... By "everything" I take it you mean "non-3D accelerated SVGA games running in a Win95 DOS box"? How many other games do you have like that? This really isn't something I have seen in GP2, and actually if anything I found backmarkers a little too stupid in their eagerness to get OFF line and out of my way. I generally find that I've already moved off-line to sweep past them and they will then also move off-line to give me space - the result is I am blocked and a serious brown trousers moment as I try to stay out of his gearbox and on the track. A bit like real life, the backmarkers are unpredictable and should be treated with caution. In F1RS, the leaders are too obliging, suffering from "Senna syndrome". This means they can be intimidated into giving up their place simply by diving onto the inside line under braking - the CCs are more concerned with avoiding an accident than with racing, and so they'll tamely capitulate. That isn't racing, that's hotlapping - if you can catch the person in front you will always pass them, and that is definitely _not_ the case in F1 today as you know. See above - I think it's way too exaggerated the way these guys try to get out of your way. Do you think Schumacher would really move if you tried to force your way past him? No chance. I have games in Quake where I would get stuck in the wall and have to wait for someone to kill me, and I have pictures in ICR2 where the car was rotated through 90 deg so that the right side wheels were on the road and the left side pointed toward the sky - nothing is 100% perfect, and as long as these issues are "rare oddities" rather than persistent problems I can accept them. That particular problem in ICR2 I could accept since I saw it once - the HOG bug was also sporadic but enough that it needed fixed. I think GP2 has several of the former type and very few (if any) of the latter. Guess what - it uses a 3D accelerator. Can you imagine how slow it would be without that? You write your game for the hardware available at the time, and GP2 was written to be able to run on the prevalent hardware. Why else do you think all of the options were made available to tweak the graphics? If you insist on turning everything on then the problem of the poor frame-rate is yours, not Geoff Crammonds. He provided you with the options and it is your choice whether to use them or not. Sound also needs improved. Pitstops are handled poorly, tyre choice isn't correct, camber doesn't work, no tyre pressures included, no separation of slow and fast damper settings, grass slows car down way too much, some of the circuits are totally awful - there's many things which could be improved about F1RS if you want to look toward the negative. Here we differ - I really don't think GP2 needed to be patched. 3dFX support would have been nice to have, network support would have been nice to have, but it was a classic sim as and when it was released. Newer products like ICR2, F1RS and CPR have been patched, but this is because they _needed_ patched in order to fix glaring errors which should have been attended to before release. You shouldn't confuse good support with releasing a product before it is ready. I agree, it's been on my hard drive only briefly since this time last year (to test the add-on track pack). I got bored with it a long time ago. Cheers! John
Phil Bowe 09 Jan 1998#391109
No, the Microsoft way is to send out a product that's buggy as hell, then change the release number and charge you again for the fix. All while adding more shit to the code to make anything that did work in the past, fail now. ---------------------------------------------------------- If You think health care is expensive now, wait till it's free! RR #3 Box 96 Williamsport, Pa. 17701 (717) 745-7697
Nic 15 Jan 1998#392304
It's always great to read a mature and considered opinion that shows original thought :P

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